Happy 16th Birthday, Savannah!

Dear Savannah,

Today is your 16th birthday! Happy Birthday!! This is such a major milestone birthday for you and it also means I’ve been a mom now for 16 years. How did we get here?? Time flies when you’re having fun! Here are some things I’d like to remember about you when you turned 16 years old and some things that you might like to know about your 16 year old self.

1. You still love dance. It’s your passion. You dance at a studio in downtown Chicago. Daddy and I drive you there many days a week and it’s your favorite place to be. They are your 2nd family.
2. You are an incredible student. Not only do you get straight A’s, but you get A+’s. You are in honors and dual credit classes as well. You strive for perfection at school and you always achieve it. I have had several teachers tell me that if all their classes were filled with ‘Savannah’s” their job as a teacher would be so easy.
3. You are extremely organized as far as balancing everything you need to get done. You know how to plan homework and studying around your dance schedule so you don’t have to stress about things and always go above and beyond on all your assignments.
4. You are still participating in DECA business club at school. You absolutely love business. You competed in marketing communications this year and qualified for the state competition. You also took dual credit marketing and LOVED it!
5. Some of your favorite foods are shrimp, pasta, avocados, waffles, nutella, apples, southwest salad, bagels, chicken, honey mustard pretzels and broccoli cheese soup.
6. For your birthday dinner this year you want Slyce Coal Fired pizza……again.
7. You love your two dogs, Scarlett and Scotty, and love to have them snuggle with you on the couch.
8. You love being alone. You are very much like Daddy in that way. If you have time off from dance or school, you’d rather spend it watching TV (Young Sheldon is a favorite right now) or taking a nap.
9. You have a lot of friends at school, but you don’t really hang out with them outside of school. You are so busy that downtime is very precious and is usually used to recover from long dance days and weekends.
10. You love your dance friends. You spend most of your energy on those relationships, but unfortunately none of them live close to us.
11. You have no interest in doing a lot of the standard high school stuff. You haven’t gone to homecoming, you don’t love going to football games. You view school as your job……get in……get the work done and get out.
12. You have a lot of little kids at dance that look up to you. You are very kind and helpful towards all of them.
13. You will not be getting your driver’s license on your 16th birthday because in IL you have to have your permit for 9 months…..so you can get your license in May. You are fine with it because you are in no rush to drive.
14. I’ve said this in years past and I’ll say it again……as organized and on top of things as you are in all aspects of your life, there is one place where that all disappears……your room. Your room is so messy. Huge piles of clothes on the floor and it just never seems to stay clean.
15. You are still doing some modeling. Mainly for dance but you like to do editorial print modeling as well.
16. You love lists. You always have a list going for all sorts of things and love checking things off those lists. You also like to leave me post-it notes around the house to remind me of things.
17. You are really into skincare and make-up. You have the most beautiful skin and are amazing at make-up.
18. You are still competing with your dancing. After this season concludes, you will have done 9 regional competitions and two nationals. It’s our fun mother-daughter time and I love on these competition weekends.
19. You still like to be early everywhere we go. You’re not quite as crazy about it as you used to be but I like being early too, so it works.
20. Right now you’re thinking you’d like to go to college for dance and hopefully end up at a place where you could double major in business. But who knows where your head will be in another few years!

Savannah Rose, you are a truly exceptional child……TRULY! You are talented, smart, hardworking, disciplined, organized, kind, helpful and responsible. To know you, is to love you and I could not be more proud to call you mine. I have no doubt in my mind that you will be incredibly successful in whatever you choose to do. Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

I love you from here to the moon and back again!

Love,

Mama

Photos by: Rich Mohr